


Chasing Our Hearts' Desire

by RogueBelle



Series: Afterwards [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Post-Battle of Winterfell, Post-Episode: s08e03 The Long Night, Romance, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-07 04:03:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18865315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueBelle/pseuds/RogueBelle
Summary: At Winterfell, as the snows fall and the world quiets around them, Jaime and Brienne learn each other.--Jaime wakes in the middle of the night, and his foot hits the cold stone of the floor before he remembers: ‘You don’t have to leave.’





	1. close your eyes and try to dream

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a series of drabbles, all taking place at Winterfell between the Battle and when Jaime departs for King's Landing. Lest that break your heart, I am placing all of this quite definitely in the midst of _my_ personal headcanon, which ends entirely differently than damn 8x05. Check out [No Better to Be Safe Than Sorry](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18758191/chapters/44498545) if you want to fix that in your imagination first, so that these snippets are more sweet than bitter.

Jaime wakes in the middle of the night, and his foot hits the cold stone of the floor before he remembers:  _ ‘You don’t have to leave.’ _

His body has moved out of habit, victim of too many years of necessary stealth. A slow grin slides over his face in the semi-darkness.  _ ‘I can stay all night. I can stay til the morning, with no reason to feel shame.’ _

Well. They  _ are _ unwed, and that might give some people reason to look askance. But wartime bends many social strictures, and Brienne is no delicate maid of six-and-ten, tragically deflowered. She’s a woman grown who has been making her own decisions for years.  _ ‘And she chose this. Chose me.’ _

What a staggering, precious thing.

Jaime doesn’t realize he’s still half-out of the bed until Brienne stirs, rolling towards him and swiping blearily at her eyes. “Jaime?”

A soft murmur, but one that almost breaks his heart for the faint note of vulnerability in it. His hand drifts to her hair, smoothing out an adorably disheveled flaxen lock. “Just putting another log on the fire,” he says, voice low. “Go back to sleep.”

And since he’s said it, he does get up to re-stoke the fire. This room will never be completely dark, maybe not even in summer, not with the need to keep a warming blaze going. Jaime stays by the hearth a moment, watching the play of orange light over the sharp angles of Brienne’s face.

She doesn’t curl into him when he returns to her side.  _ ‘Of course,’  _ he realizes, ‘ _ she wouldn’t.’ _ She’s never shared a bed before; she doesn’t know the shape of those comforts. But her fingers reach for him -- a leaden movement, since she’s still mostly asleep, so unlike her usual warrior’s grace. Jaime takes her hand and kisses each fingertip. Brienne’s lips form a soft smile, and she murmurs in quiet pleasure. Then Jaime curls into  _ her _ , draping her arm over him and nuzzling into her shoulder.

This, perhaps, is what peace feels like.


	2. I'd forgotten how to smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you're sore the next morning, you've probably had a good night.

When Brienne dresses the next morning, Jaime allows himself the luxury of laying in bed and watching her. Not as much fun as watching her _un_ dress, perhaps, but full of its own fascination: the way she rolls her shoulders before pulling on her shirt, the astonishing length of her legs as she pulls on her trousers.

He notices, too, a bit of a wince crinkling her face. “Something wrong?”

“Just a bit sore,” she says brusquely.

It’s the brusqueness that gives her away. Everyone in the damn castle is likely still sore from the battle, if they participated -- or from the prolonged stress of hiding while sitting on cold stone benches underground, if they weren’t. That, alone, would be nothing for her to be furrowing her brow over.

Jaime can’t help a small grin. “Sore in places you didn’t expect, I warrant?”

Brienne glares at him, but the effect is spoiled by the pink flush racing over her cheeks. “Don’t be crude.”

He shouldn’t tease. He knows he shouldn’t. But the expression of consternation on her face is simply too wonderful. “Well,” he begins, hauling himself out of bed, “if anyone asks why you’re walking strangely--”

“I am _not_ walking strangely!”

“--then you’ll simply have to attribute it to a grievous wound taken in battle.”

She scowls. “I didn’t _take_ any grievous wounds during the battle.”

“Certainly did.” Jaime sidles up to her and swings an arm around her waist. “I saw it.” He buries his face in her shoulder, nipping playfully at her collarbone. “Nearly took your leg off. Astonishing you survived.”

Brienne gives a snort of exasperation -- but her hands have fallen on his shoulders, and one strokes lazily down his back. “I didn’t take any wounds,” she says, in a much gentler tone, “because you were there, watching my back.”

He kisses up her neck, to her ear, “As you watched mine.”

Promises come to his lips, but trespass no further. He wants to tell her that he always _will_ be there, fighting back-to-back with her. But neither one of them knows what the future will hold, nor if standing with her will always be the best way to keep her safe. And how much worse it would be, to make that promise and find himself unable to keep it.

So instead, he falls back on humor. His brother may be the Imp, but Jaime has more than a bit of devilish spirit in him, too. “But clearly you made finer work of guarding me than I did you, since _I’m_ not the one walking strangely today.” She pinches his side at the base of his ribs, making him cry out and laugh at the same time. “Vicious wench.”

His lips find hers, and she melts into him, her hands holding fast around his middle. For a moment, Jaime thinks he might be able to entice her back into bed for a while longer. _‘The whole damn day, maybe. What else could there possibly be to do in the North in winter?’_

But she pulls away from him after a moment, and if her eyes do look a bit regretful, for Brienne, duty will always come first. “I have to go see Lady Sansa. I’ve left checking in with her late enough already. Put some bloody clothes on,” she says, her eyes flicking downward for the briefest of instants. “You’ll catch your death.”


	3. just some little thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She isn’t sure what to want, much less to expect. Courtship is such a strange and foreign beast.

Brienne is standing in the yard, ignoring the flurries curling about in the air and watching Podrick sparring with some of the Northern lads, when Jaime wanders up alongside her, just as he did the day before the battle. Brienne’s half-delighted, half-horrified to feel her cheeks warming up just at the sight of him. It’s embarrassing, to feel so girlish, so utterly at the mercy of the heady mix of tender emotions and carnal desire -- and it’s magnificent, too. Certainly it’s something she had never expected.

_‘How do people stand it?’_ she wonders. They’re feet apart and both bundled into at least six layers of warm clothing, and yet everything in her body bids her to remember flesh against flesh.  _'What a distraction.'_

Jaime gives her a smile, a nod, and a “Brienne,” but his eyes are fixed on the young men trading blows with sparring swords.

_‘Well, what did you expect?’_ Brienne chides herself. It’s not as though she greeted him any more effusively, after all. And while they aren’t precisely hiding what’s going on between them, nor are they flaunting it in an unseemly fashion. So Brienne controls herself, affecting the same stern, impassive expression she typically wears while on duty.

_‘Still. It might’ve been nice if he’d…’_ But she isn’t even sure how to finish that sentence. She isn’t sure what to _want_ , much less to expect. Courtship is such a strange and foreign beast. Perhaps it's not as urgent for him, something he can set aside in the daylight hours and pick back up when the time is appropriate.

“You’ve got Pod working with the younger lads, I see,” Jaime comments.

“Yes,” Brienne replies. “He’s reached the point where it’s more helpful for him to teach than simply to respond to commands,” Brienne says, and she can’t keep a bit of pride out of her voice. Podrick has come so far, in such trying circumstances. He’s grown into a man under her eye, has fought beside her, has seen horrors of all kinds -- and yet has never grown hard, never lost his essential sweetness. A rare thing, but perhaps together, they can mold more knights into that image.

Podrick proves her point as they watch, knocking a slender lad to the ground -- then giving him a hand up and walking through the motions of their bout more slowly, to show the lad where he put a foot wrong.

“He’s taken to it quite well,” Brienne says.

“Good, good,” Jaime says, nodding. “That’s quite fortunate.”

Brienne’s face screws up slightly. “Fortunate?” An odd choice of word.

“Mm.” He nods, mock-sagely. “Fortunate. Fortunate that they can get along without your intervening, at least for a few moments.” Then he leans in, his breath warm against her ear. “Because I am going to count to one hundred, and then I am going to kiss you utterly senseless. If you’d prefer to be somewhere convenient when that occurs…” He draws back, so that she can see his boyish grin. “Move.”

Jaime Lannister is a man of his word.

Less than two minutes later, he has the Knight of Tarth pressed up against a stone wall around the corner from the archery range, her fingers tangled deeply in his hair, his hand slipping beneath coat and jerkin to try and get a little closer to her skin, and when his mouth slips from hers, all she can do is sigh, " _Jaime_."


End file.
